How Marketing Legend Guy Kawasaki Manages His Social Media Presence

Guy Kawasaki is a special advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google. He is also the author of APE, What the Plus!, Enchantment, and nine other books.HubSpot invited Guy to reveal the secrets behind his incredibly active and popular social media profiles that enable him to reach millions each day.

Many people ask me how I manage my social media accounts (and others make stuff up rather than figure out what I do). Here are the gory, inside-story details of what I do. Perhaps you may find some of my methods useful to help you get the most out of social media, too.

Twitter

On Twitter, I'm @GuyKawasaki. My Twitter practices defy the recommendations of social media "schmexperts" (schmuck + experts) to manually post a limited number of tweets and not use automation, repetition, contributors, and ghostwriters.

I have never been on the Twitter Suggested User List, and I have more than 1.2 million followers. I attribute this success to providing a lot of interesting links that people retweet. These retweets expose me to many people who then follow me. There are five (yes, five -- count 'em) sources that feed my Twitter account:

I co-founded a website called Alltop. Half of it is an aggregation of 30,000 RSS feeds organized into 1,500 topics ranging from adoption to zoology. The other half is a website called HolyKaw.

HolyKaw provides a continuous flow of interesting and diverse stories that should elicit the response, “Holy cow!” (Holycow.com was taken but since my name is pronounced “Cow-asaki,” I figured that HolyKaw would work.)

The posts on HolyKaw are short summations of stories, a picture or video to illustrate the story, and a link to the source. Approximately twenty people/organizations have contributor-level access to HolyKaw.

We pay several as editors -- they are not “interns” in the sense of unpaid students. Organizations such as Futurity and National Geographic also have contributor-level access because they consistently post great stories.

The reason for repeated tweets is to maximize traffic and therefore advertising sales. I’ve found that each tweet gets approximately the same amount of clickthroughs. Why get 600 page views when you can get 2,400? Like CNN, ESPN, and NPR, we provide content repeatedly because people live in different time zones and have different social media habits.

3) Repurposed Facebook.com Posts

4) My Comments and Responses

I use Tweetdeck to respond to @-mentions of @Guykawasaki, as well as to direct messages. If you see a response tweet, it is always me -- never anyone else.

5) Promotional Tweets

Finally, if you see a tweet that is promoting my books, appearances, or investments, it’s almost always one that I posted with Tweetdeck or that Peg Fitzpatrick has scheduled using HootSuite.

Google+

On Google+, I'm GuyKawasaki, and Google+ is the core of my social media existence. It is the Macintosh of social media: better, used by fewer people, and often condemned by the experts. Unlike other social media profiles I own, no one else ever posts, responds, or comments on Google+ as me.

My orientation toward Google+ (and social media in general) is what I call the NPR Model. My role is to curate good stories that entertain, enlighten, and inspire people 365 days a year. My goal is to earn the right to promote my books, companies, or causes to them just as NPR earns the right to run fundraising telethons from time to time.

Think of this as crowdsourced story leads. The beauty of this feed is that you know that people have already judged the stories as good, though it tends to be heavy on Android news and inspirational quotations.

4) Most Popular Stories

When I’m checking out stories from the first two sources, I look at the “Most Emailed” and “Most Popular” listings on the right side of most websites. These often yield great material. I’ve also compiled a collection of most emailed and most popular feeds at Most-Popular.alltop to make this even easier for you.

5) Pointers From Various Friends and Family

Many people know that I’m on the hunt for good content, so they send me leads. These are almost always good enough to post.

Some of my Google+ posts pass the “holy cow!” test, and there is a plug-in to publish Google+ posts to a WordPress blog. This means I can cherry pick my Google+ posts for HolyKaw. (Look for the hashtag “HolyKaw” to see which will appear in HolyKaw and later Twitter.)

Peg Fitzpatrick, Trey Ratcliff, and I use this method to select some of their Google+ posts for inclusion in HolyKaw. They do this to gain additional exposure since these posts are tweeted to my 1.2 million Twitter followers four times eight hours apart through the HolyKaw GRATE machine.

Three Google+ Power Tips

I adore Google+, so let me provide these power tips for using the service:

1) Find anytime, butpost when you’re cogent.

I often get up in the middle of the night and check Alltop and the Google+ What’s Hot feed on my Nexus 7. When I find something good, I share it to a Google+ private community with only one member: me. When I wake up in the morning, I go to this community to see what stories I found in a less cogent condition and write up a post.

2)Schedule Google+ posts.

There are multiple ways to schedule Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Pinterest posts using various tools. However, Google+ makes it harder than those services. There are two ways to do this, however. First, there’s Do Share, a Chrome extension. Second, if you have a HootSuite enterprise account, you can schedule to a Google+ Business Page (as opposed to a personal profile). Since my Google+ focus is on my personal profile, I don't use the HootSuite method.

3) Get rid of trolls.

Be a hard-ass: Get rid of people who irritate you. Think of your Google+ posts as your swimming pool. If people pee in it, throw them out. There are some people you need to get out of your social media life. A Chrome extension called Nuke Comments is a lovely solution because it enables you to delete a comment, block the person, and report him/her with one click.

There are plugins that can automatically publish Google+ posts to Facebook. However, every Google+ post is not appropriate for Facebook, and there’s no way for me to tag the ones that are appropriate. Thus, a human has to make the decision, download the photo or YouTube embed link, make minor edits such as removing the “+” in Google+ +mentions, and post to Facebook.

I monitor comments at Facebook.com/guy and respond to them as much as time permits. My virtual assistant never acts as me, so either I answer or there is no response at all.

Second, for Facebook.com/guysco, Peg Fitzpatrick, whom I mentioned earlier, makes all the posts to this page, and these stories automatically become tweets. This Facebook Page is a branding effort for “Guy’s companies,” which are primarily my books.

LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, I am Guy Kawasaki. The virtual assistant who takes my Google+ posts and publishes them to Facebook uses the same process for LinkedIn using Buffer. One of the cool things about Buffer is that you can post to Facebook and LinkedIn at the same time, so this is easy.

There are seldom comments on my LinkedIn posts, so I seldom visit my posts to respond -- of course, this may be a self-fulfilling process. But I have to draw the line somewhere, or I’ll never play hockey during the day, which is a key component of my happiness.

Pinterest

On Pinterest, I'm Guykawasaki, but Peg Fitzpatrick manages my Pinterest presence. There are two reasons: First, I don’t have enough time to do a good job with more than three services (my priority, in order, is Google+, then Twitter, then Facebook).

Second, I don’t have Peg’s magic sauce to manage Pinterest as well as the Pinterest community deserves. Part of doing social media well is knowing what you don’t know and what you can’t do well, and then finding someone who does.

Conclusion

Don’t get the impression that there is a huge team of people doing what I described above. The total of all resources, excluding my own activities, is approximately one full-time equivalent. In addition, I spend three to four hours per day creating my own posts and commenting and responding.

This post itself is HolyKaw material. I cannot imagine someone can organize, plan and manage their social media profile in such a comprehensive way. There are definitely lessons to be learned from it. I need to save it and reread it. Thanks!

Now I know why so many posts on LinkedIn from Guy seem so completely irrelevant to the industry. It would seem this technique is not about providing useful information but about just getting read and retweeted.

schmexperts. Love it. I have noticed a lot of so called social media guru's preying on LinkedIn members after the SWAM policy blocked their ability to post. How would you suggest those users move forward and protect themselves from people trying to take advantage of a bad situation.

Guy's ever-expansive SM presence (ooops, I mean large, over-sized, manically overbearing ego) has just been pandered to again. Yes, he has name-brand recognition. No, he does not offer quality - in my humble opinion - he offers quantity - all of which is good for one person only . . . . Guy himself! Not sure if such a sweeping magnitude of constant outpourings from him is worthy of emulating - depends on the type of business. Lots of gushers, here, though. Interesting.

I suppose there is always one in the group. Nice page Ms. Kettle. I was almost able to read it from 6 inches away. Obviously you don't market to companies whose managers wear glasses. Google PR 2 huh? That's what I look for in a quality SEO company. One that can barely promote themselves.

Thanks for the comprehensive summary and helpful tips. It is nice to see how you delegate and manage the main 4 media sites, RSS feeds, blog, additional tools and other content with 3-4 hours per day. The twitter detail was also very helpful. Thanks!
Amy

I am familiar with the purple books at the book store but had no idea Guy was so involved in modern social media. His overall strategy is well thought out and I found it interesting that he put so much emphasis on Google Plus. Thanks for allowing us to peek into Guy's strategy.

So, in other words, it is totally a job being Guy in social media. I kind of thought so. These techniques and insight are extremely useful and helpful. Both for companies and for bloggers etc. It was generous of you to share your methods and I can take this to the office and show them the kind of commitment social media takes.

Gladys Haiti Alley

I feel as if I should pay for this info I'm so grateful. Greatly generous! I will Share w/my Facebook list; so many on there will find it beneficial for their products. I DEFINITELY want to try this social media "order." Thank you.... :) --GLADYS HAITI ALLEY

I was always curious on how these guys kawasaki, scooble, etc manage their multiple social media profiles.
This is a cool post. Good explanation of how Kawasaki works and how one can adopt of social media management from him

This is a great post in terms of understanding HOW TO PROPERLY MANAGE social media. What I love the most is how Guy shares what are his top 3. It's the only way to really be able to make any kind of improvements with social media, or else, it becomes overwhelming.
Thanks for sharing Guy!
Krizia

This is the best social media management article I've read. This gives me hope. I am not in any way affiliated with them, nor paid in any way to endorse.... but just had to share that I've discovered GroSocial and am quite impressed so far with how well it helps manage social media.
Thanks SO much for sharing Guy, have a great day!

Hurray I'm on the right track. This is fantastic news. I'm still trying to find my Google plus people. It's been a slow process but they are slowly coming over and trying it out. I love buffer! I never have been able to get into Hootsuite. Great information.

Awesome post. I believe Guy is in POLE position because he is
Passionate about his work,
Optimised in his efforts,
Learns from others and
Excels in what he does!
Truly inspirational.

Paul P

I like the mobile G+ the best. On my iPad or my Razr Maxx G+ offers a Nearby mode for posts that are made locally. I love this mode for advertising my local businesses that I frequent. Like my son's TaeKwondo school. I take a picture of the the kids, post it to G+ and set the location, with the post I say something positive about the place. G+ has all the businesses in the area, so their name and address are posted also.

Social media presence helps to enhance the profile of a brand, business, or author. We can see that from the many followers and traffic buzz in a website.
The techniques applied by Guy Kawasaki are very clear and can be adopted by anyone who intends to increase their online profile. Guy Kawasaki is a marketing legend and I am pretty sure that many would like to follow his tips.
However, it is important for the adopters never to forget that the social media and the Internet are dynamic and so what works today may not work tomorrow.
The above comment has been shared in kingged.com where this post was "kingged".

Guy,
Thanks for the insight and the "how to's". You give me lots of food for thought and lots of inspiring ideas. Seems that once you get organized and have a system to follow, things flow more naturally and smoothly.
I'm still a work in progress with lots of room to grow.
Cheers,
Marc

As with Guy, 99% of the content that we create and curate and share should be coming from our desktop or mobile device given that; you are the Brand so you want Google to know this and "credit" your Rich Snippet with the content that gets shared by others.

Thanks for the Google+ tips, Guy. I've been neglecting that channel of my social media strategy lately an your perspective gave me some new insights. All around great info, especially your recommendations of tools, sites and plugins to make social media management more palatable. Thanks again!
~ Nate Lapierre
tait marketing

I was fortunate enough to meet Guy somewhere close to 25 years ago at a Mac users group in Marin County. He was not far removed from his evangelist days and I asked him how he had time to go to the MUG meeting.
He said "This IS what I do with my time."
Not much has changed. Nice to read this excellent piece.

I follow Guy Kawasaki on G+ & Twitter. Not everyone will have 3 to 4 hours a day to curate, post and reply to comments. Most people may not need or want to manage 6 million followers to get their message out. The things he shares here works for him. If you want to build up an audience, then at least you know what is involved based on what Guy shared here.

Thanks for the tippidy tips Guy! your alltop website rocks bro! I remember when you guys started years ago, I am glad to see the many improvements. I will be using your tips to build meaningful connections. Thanks again!

Veron

Thanks for the sharing. You've found your formula. I'm a newbie in blogging. Can anyone share how long it takes for regular income streams to come in. Not sure if Guy could share?

Great post! I wonder if you could post your favorite hashtags and why you like them.
thanks.
I'm Darrel3000 at Google+, Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, Blogspot, Wordpress, yahoo, and across most of social media

Really good tips for my blog. It's very easy to automate everything but you ruin the authenticity of your content. I'm still trying to build up separate communities with quality content that is slightly repurposed to suit each network; Facebook, Twitter and Google+ etc.

Very impressive, Guy. Thanks for sharing the tips. I had no ideas there're a lot that went into managing your daily social media engagement and activities. Where do you find any free time for yourself?